MOMBOURQUETTE: Post suggestions for HRM on Dear Halifax

The Rolling Stones light up the Halifax skyline as they play the Halifax Commons during their Bigger Bang Tour in 2006. (JEFF HARPER)

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ANGELA MOMBOURQUETTE

IF YOU HAVEN’T heard about Dear Halifax by now, you probably need to get out more.

The “what” of it is everywhere: Dear Halifax is a Facebook site, conceived and executed by Corinne MacLellan — a marketing and communications specialist by profession — with the help of photographer Mike Dembeck and production co-ordinator Miles Connely. It’s a “virtual” place where everyone is welcome to express their blue-sky dreams for the future of this city. But despite all the media coverage it’s received, the “why” of Dear Halifax has seemed a little unclear to me — and pinning down the energetic, mile-a-minute MacLellan on the finer points is no easy task.

Turns out it’s not a rah-rah tourism marketing scheme, although MacLellan was inspired, in part, by the province’s Visit My Nova Scotia campaign, which she worked on; it’s not some beer company’s underhanded advertising campaign; and it hasn’t (yet) been co-opted to become a fundraiser for a random “good cause,” as many social media initiatives do. For now, it’s a simple, grassroots initiative inspired by curiosity and a sense that the people of Halifax Regional Municipality might have something (preferably positive) to say about the city they live in and they city they hope Halifax can become.

The project, conceived a few months earlier, came together during the Christmas holidays. The team went out in search of video clips, and discovered that mayor Mike Savage and a number of other people were happy to participate. “They all had really valid ideas about the city and how we can kind of move forward together, so we threw those out there, and the next thing we knew we were closing in on having 2000 people ‘like’ our page.”

The site now has well over that number and it’s growing quickly, as is the number of posts with creative ideas for the city. “We have one gentleman who must be a former planner; he’s designed phases one, two and three for rapid transit downtown,” she says, slightly awed.

Of course, there are suggestions for more whimsical things, like hot air balloon rides over the harbour. But MacLellan says there are definite themes among the comments. “People are really concerned about crime,” she says. “Development is a really big issue but transit is the ongoing theme, probably number one in terms of what we hear about.” She says those who post on the site also often mention jobs. “Employment and uncertainty about the future are big themes. I think people feel generally optimistic, but if I were taking the temperature of where people are, I would say ‘cautiously optimistic.’”

More than anything, MacLellan says she sees “an incredible appetite for change.” The next step for her, she says, is to try to bring some of the suggestions to life. “We are hopeful to have a meeting with the mayor about some of the neat ideas that have surfaced.”

Ahh. Now that’s a raison d’etre I can really get behind. Says MacLellan: “We can’t do balloon rides over the harbour for a million reasons, but I think it would be fantastic to try and do some on the Common.”

If you haven’t yet posted your own “Dear Halifax,” it’s not too late. “Be part of the conversation,” says MacLellan. “We all have a dream — everybody has one, and we want you to share it. The sky’s the limit.”